Artists

Roberto Cominati
Born in Naples in 1969, Roberto Cominati won the Alfredo Casella competition in Naples in 1991 and the First Prize at the International Competition Ferruccio Busoni in Bolzano in 1993; this last award launched his career and gained him the favour of both critics and major Italian concert promoters alike. In 1999, he was awarded the Jacques Stehman Prize by the audience of RTBF and TV5 France at the Brussels Reine Elisabeth Competition.

He has appeared with leading European orchestras as well as in Japan and Australia, under the baton of important conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Andrey Boreyko, Leon Fleisher, Daniel Harding, Eliahu Inbal, Yuri Ahronovitch, Michael Pletnev, David Robertson and Aleksandr Lazarev.

In January of 2015, he gave his debut in the Concertgebouw series “Master Pianists”.

Roland Maria Stangier has been Professor of Organ and Improvisation at Folkwang University in Essen since 1994. Since 2003 he has been the curator of the Kuhn organ in the Essen Philarmonie and has also been the organ curator at the Philharmonie Mercatorhalle in Duisburg. Since 2010 he is also titular organist at the Kreuzeskirche in Essen.

After studying in Würzburg and Paris with Zsolt Gárdonyi and Daniel Roth among others, Roland Maria Stangier received a bursary from the Air bridge memorial bursary (Bourse du memorial du pont aérien) from the Berlin Allies, the first organist to receive such an award, studying in Paris and Strasbourg with Daniel Roth and André Fleury.After his studies, he became cantor and organist in Schopfheim, Berlin and Solothurn (Switzerland), director of sacred music at the Church of St. Peter in Hamburg and led the Hamburg Bach Choir; after this he taught at the conservatory in Bremen and at the Erzbischöfliche Kirchenmusikschule Berlin (Archiepiscopal School for Sacred Music Berlin).

Roland Maria Stanier was awarded three times in competitions and initiated the Maurice Duruflé International Improvisation Competition in Hamburg. He has given concerts all across the world and has recorded numerous CDs as a conductor and organist.

Susanna Yoko Henkel belongs to the leading violinists of the young generation. In 2007, the German “Welt am Sonntag” declared her to be one of Anne Sophie Mutter’s heiresses, the renowned US music journal “Strings” featured her on the cover of its January 2007 issue, and her recordings were highly praised in the trade press.

Susanna Yoko Henkel was born into a German- Japanese musical family and began to play the violin at the age of two, receiving lessons from her mother. Later, she received instruction from Conrad von der Goltz. At the tender age of 12, she enrolled at the Academy of Music in Freiburg/Germany, where she became a young protégé of Prof. Rainer Kussmaul. Later, she spent five years completing her studies at the Munich Academy under the tutelage of Ana Chumachenco.

During her studies Susanna Yoko Henkel already won numerous prizes at international competitions, among them the “Queen Elisabeth Competition” in Brussels, the “Mozart Competition” in Salzburg and the “Tibor Varga Competition” in Sion. In 1998 she placed first at the German Music Competition in Berlin, followed by a scholarship from the Dortmund Mozart Society and the “Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben”.

Her achievements in competitions were followed by an intense career as a performing soloist, appearing with leading orchestras such as the Berlin Radio Broadcasting Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestras of the SWR and the MDR Leipzig, the Symphony Orchestras Aachen and Duisburg, the Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Mozarteum Salzburg and the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul. In 2003 Susanna Yoko Henkel was engaged as a soloist for the acclaimed “Toyota Classics” tour, leading to performances of the Mendelssohn violin concerto in Southeast Asia.

In addition to her career as a soloist Susanna Yoko Henkel is a passionate chamber musician. In 2006 she founded her own chamber music festival in Zagreb/Croatia. It is now well established as one of the country’s major cultural events and has been televised by Croatian public television HTV since 2007. Among her partners in chambermusic are Itamar Golan, Lauma Skride, Pavel and Maxim Rysanov at renowned music festivals such as the Ansbacher Bachwoche, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Rheingau-Musik-Festival and the concerts in the Paris Chatelet. During the 2009/2010 season, Susanna Yoko Henkel is “Artist in Residence” of the Duisburg Philharmonic and in this capacity will not only perform and record Tschaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, but also take part in several Chamber Music projectsand Youth events.

Her discography includes the Complete Recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, the chamber music works of Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofjev and Richard Strauss, the solo works of Ysaye, Bartók and Isang Yun and duo works for violin and violoncello by Handel/Halvorsen, Eisler, Schulhoff and Kodály.

Thomas Trotter is one of the most widely acclaimed British musicians. The excellence of his musicianship is reflected in his international musical partnerships. As a soloist, he has performed with, amongst many others, conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly and Sir Charles Mackerras. He is regularly asked to perform on major historical instruments such as those at St Ouen in Rouen, St Bavo’s in Haarlem (Netherlands), Weingarten Abbey in Germany and Woolsey Hall of Yale University. He regularly appears in the festivals at Salzburg, Berlin, Vienna, Edinburgh and in London’s BBC Proms and performs with leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic, and in the USA with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. In 2001, he was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious award for Best Instrumentalist, the first organist to receive this accolade. The roots of Thomas Trotter’s career are also to be found in his special relationship with the town of Birmingham. He was appointed Birmingham City Organist in 1983, in succession to Sir George Thalben-Ball. He is also Organist at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey in London and is visiting Professor of Organ at London’s Royal College of Music. He was organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, and he later continued his studies with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris where he took the Prix de Virtuositè in her class. He won First Prize at the St Albans International Organ Competition in 1979 and made his debut in London’s Royal Festival Hall the following year. Birmingham City University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2003, as did the University of Birmingham in 2006. In addition to his weekly recitals in Birmingham, Thomas Trotter also performs throughout the USA and Europe. He is a prolific recording artist, and his CD versions of works by Mozart and Olivier Messiaen have won major awards.

was born in 1986 in Novi Sad, Serbia. She graduated from the “Isidor Bajic” Music School in Novi Sad, studying with professor Vera Hofman-Momcilovic, and was named the best student of her generation, giving a command performance for the Royal Family of Serbia, the Karadjordjevics, for the prize ceremony. She finished her Bachelor and Master degrees at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, studying with professor Dorian Leljak. She was awarded with “The Little Prince” prize by the Music Department of Academy. She has worked at the Academy as a teaching assistant in piano and history of keyboard literature.

Tijana Andrejic has attended piano masterclasses with professors Eugen Indjic, Kemal Gekic, Rustem Hajrudinov, Sergei Babayan, Sergei Kudrjakov and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. During her education in Serbia, she received scholarships from the Serbian “Fund for Young Talents” and the “Foundation for Development of Young Scientists and Artists” from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia.

Andrejic has been very successful in various national and international competitions. The first most important honour she received was first prize at the international competition “Isidor Bajic Piano Memorial” in 2006. Tijana moved to Italy in 2009 where she continued her studies at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Bergamo with Maestro Konstantin Bogino. Starting in 2010, she has been a student of Maestro Boris Petrushansky at the International Academy “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola.

Tijana Andrejic has performed in England, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Estonia, Ukraine and in the Czech Republic, in concert venues such as Rudolfinum in Prague, Steinway Hall in London, Kolarac Concert Hall in Belgrade, the Synagogue and City Hall in Novi Sad, Bocconi University in Milano, Theatre Politeama in Palermo, Theatre Bon in Udine and Theatre Miela in Trieste. She has played with the Serbian Radio-Television Orchestra, the Banatul State Philharmonic Orchestra of Timisoara, the Niederbayerische Kammerphilharmonie, the Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra of South Bohemia and the Orchestras of international piano festivals of Brescia and Bergamo.

Her repertoire extends from Bach’s Goldberg Variations to Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Lutoslawski, Ligeti and Shchedrin. She recently performed Giuseppe Andaloro’s transcription of the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky for two pianos and two cellos together with Giovanni Sollima and Monika Leskovar. Andrejic's is especially interested in the promotion of Serbian music and often programming it in her concerts.